by Gerry Carruthers

Dan Baird, who has died after a period of illness, his last two and half months spent in the wonderful care of St Margaret’s Hospice, was well-known in the Catholic community of the west of Scotland, including to the readers of Open House to which he was an occasional contributor.

Initially employed in the Civil Service, Dan became a teacher, retiring from St Pius secondary school in Drumchapel. I met him in the 1990s when he had taken early retirement and was studying for a part-time diploma in Scottish Literature, on which I taught at the University of Strathclyde. In conversation, I found that as well as all the great 20th century English Catholic writers, Greene, Waugh, Lodge and so on, Dan was also familiar with the Scottish ones like Mackay Brown, Spark, and even more obscure individuals such as Fionn Mac Colla, George Friel and Bruce Marshall. This mutual interest began a decade plus period of important collaboration for us which saw the revival of the dormant Glasgow Circle of the Newman Association, Dan as secretary and myself as chair from 2000.

The revived circle has now met regularly and continuously for over a quarter of a century and that success has had much to do with the tone of lively debate and discussion set by Dan. Unashamedly, a passionate advocate for Vatican II (or ‘the Council’ in his habitual phrase), Dan was keen to host topics, generally, where there was no sense that we had to ‘protect’ the church. On more than one occasion he remarked to me, ‘if it is worth belonging to, it ought to have critique from those who belong to it’. Alternating between the universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow, later at St Aloysius and now in its present venue of the Immaculate Conception, the Glasgow Newman has had well-attended meetings on ecumenism, sexuality, the Latin Mass, ‘local’ and geo-politics, with memorably huge (100 plus participants) meetings on 9/11, nationalism, denominational schools and Opus Dei. The latter apostolate, it would be fair say, was one which incurred Mr Baird’s recurrent scepticism, borne out of his wide reading, including on the topic of the political and religious right in Spain and Italy.

Crucially, Dan was culturally and intellectually formed by the post-World War II period. He lost his father in the fighting at Anzio in 1944, not having seen his parent for two years, an event which had a lasting effect on his consciousness throughout the rest of his life. The big post-war Catholic ‘event’, of course, was ‘The Council’ of the early 60s and Dan’s extracurricular activities were formed with a keen awareness of its teaching, and around progressive social and political causes through his long membership of the Labour Party and Amnesty International. Like me, he resigned from the latter over its advocacy of abortion, not so much ‘simply’ the issue in itself but due to the authoritarian way in which the pro-abortion stance was dictated by the leadership of the organisation, a harbinger of the illiberal ideological-capture of so many institutions which we are now experiencing nearly two decades later. In 2003 I also left the LP, but always felt assured that if Dan and his wife Pat (equally as engaged as Dan) remained members than there were still some very admirable Scottish socialists on the party-political scene.

Commitment

Dan’s commitment to social justice was particularly channelled through his long-standing sculpting of the Glasgow Newman programme. As part of this, I remember with huge fondness dinner at Dan and Pat’s house where Fr John McGuire (Glasgow missionary in Brazil) and Fred Shortland, then director of the South American children’s charity, Compass, were the guests. Usefully, Fred’s talk on the plight of street children to the Glasgow Circle was one of the most harrowing we ever had, the audience visibly moved – in many cases literally to tears. Dan remarked to me a little later, ‘I think this is exactly why we’re doing this.’

He and I participated in a residential summit of the various UK Newman circles in Leeds in the early 2000s, where his remarks about the perception of Glasgow Catholics by some of our English colleagues were typically and cheerfully mischievous: ‘I think they expected us to turn up off the train with a huge kerry-oot!’. From this symposium emerged the Glasgow circle’s hosting of the national Newman AGM weekend, which was a great success in no small part due to Dan’s excellent organisation. He was determined we would roll out a big gun (Sir Tom Devine) to show our admiring colleagues from furth of Scotland what we could do, and overall the AGM was declared by many members to be one of the best ever.

Less happily, the Glasgow Newman eventually moved from Glasgow University to St Aloysius after a member of Opus Dei complained that we had impertinently hosted Aidan O’Neill QC discussing controversial matters of sexuality (including abuse). Rather disingenuously, the well-educated complainer said he felt he could not raise his specific concerns at the meeting, including at our habitual and very convivial gathering for refreshments afterwards. This came as news to Dan as well as our Treasurer, both always warmly welcoming of first-time attenders, who had been companionably chatting with the man over a glass of wine. ‘A bit disappointing,’ I remarked on hearing this. ‘This is simply how these b****s operate,’ was Dan’s reply, ‘open discussion is seen as a last resort …and only then after the Inquisition fails!’

The ongoing robustness of the Glasgow Newman chaired now for many years by Pat Baird with that intrepid openness she shares with Dan, is an impressive legacy, as is as the loving family and set of friends Dan leaves behind. His wonderful funeral Mass at the Immaculate Conception on 11th January, both sad and joyful, had an appropriately large attendance. I will miss a friend who guided and influenced me in many ways, and someone who made me proud to be a Catholic.

Eternal rest grant unto him.

Professor Gerard Carruthers FRSE is Francis Hutcheson Professor of Scottish Literature, University of Glasgow